Mary Cate
Let's start with a few fun Mary Cate-isms. She loved to play and learn "plan" (piano) as part of "mommy school." She also became sort of fixated on pretending to go to Hawaii, or as she called it, "Ha-wa-wi."
Early in the quarantine, she started watching Doc McStuffins after being a diehard Daniel Tiger fan for years. This ushered in a whole new era of playing doctor endlessly. Mary Cate can often be found talking and singing to her toys with her doctor coat on. It's provided many, many hours of entertainment for her. And us. It's very cute.
Mary took well to preschool at home. It was a little weird, though, when playing school equated to recording herself reading books on the iPad.
Eddie
Because Eddie was technically the only kid for whom remote learning actually counted and was required, his school day was often longer than the older kids'. He did not love that. Luckily, he's easy-going enough that until the end, he's plowed through and been a pretty compliant student. I've learned that he is extremely quiet with his classmates but is also very silly in Zoom meetings. One of Eddie's favorite things about home school--and one of mine--was his learning to play piano. I don't know much, but between the girls and me, we could teach him some basics about form and reading music. He's pretty decent--it might be time for lessons! His favorite song he's learning to play is Ode to Joy.
Somehow, Eddie fell through the cracks when it came to actually telling him that school was closed for the rest of the year. It was mid-May before I slipped it into conversation at bedtime, and he ended up crying himself to sleep. I felt like a terrible parent...until a few days later, when I realized that he thought it meant he'd have to stay in kindergarten next year. When he learned he'd still go to first grade because of all the learning he was doing at home, he was just fine.
Throughout this time, Eddie has maintained that his favorite part is how short the school day is. It's given him time to become, as he says, "a video game master." I'll roll with it.
DJ
From day one, I've enjoyed almost all the time we've had as a family during quarantine. But the time with DJ and Annie has been an extra blessing. Eddie and Mary Cate come to school with me every day. I got to have car rides with Nellie, and after she broke her leg, we had hours every day together after school. It was always a tiny bit sad to leave DJ and Annie behind every morning--not to mention the serious mom-guilt when I would forget or wouldn't have time to wake them up to say goodbye in the morning as requested and one of them would call me crying. Neither brought home much homework, so I was never really in touch with what or how they were learning. Remote learning was especially gratifying with them for that reason.
I quickly learned that DJ doesn't like writing but he loves math. He says he doesn't like reading, but once he gets going, it's hard to get him to stop. He's been devouring Who Was and Diary of a Wimpy Kid books. He's ridiculously good at memorizing facts and Bible verses. Like, better than all the rest of us combined. He wrote a whole report on Derek Jeter with facts he remembered from reading a biography last year. I had to read the book myself to check! DJ's favorite remote learning activities are playing Prodigy (still not even sure what that is) and learning French online.
Annie
Annie took the quarantine and remote learning in stride, though she says again and again how much better she liked it when I was making up learning activities for her than her actual classwork. Ever the fashionista, Annie dressed for success every day. Like, carefully selected her outfit the night before and got dressed before coming downstairs every single day, even though she hasn't seen a friend in over two months. Her glasses broke right at the beginning of all this, after the vision centers closed, so she's been wearing taped-up glasses but never complains.
Annie used some of this time "off" to start a cooking club for her siblings that eventually morphed into her own Youtube channel for baking. She's had fun and learned a lot about filming and managing a channel.
Nellie
Even without a broken leg, staying at home and learning all day every day with her family was probably most challenging for Nellie. She did fine with remote learning; the issue was the togetherness. But she hung in there and created some amazing products, especially with flute, choir, and her "genius hour" projects. Nellie is super self-reliant, which wasn't news to me but definitely stood out in our surprise home-schooling. I have no doubt Nellie could learn successfully online forever, but I'm not sure anyone is more ready to go back to school than she is!
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